Problem is, kids have limited resources. They can only behave so much before they feel depleted. Everyday challenges are hard enough—imagine going through them when we don’t meet their basic needs.

Let’s say your child was playing at the park with a little boy. She gets frustrated when he takes the ball away from her. In retaliation, she pushes him, causing him to cry.

You encourage her to learn empathy and understand why the boy is crying, but she isn’t able to show any empathy when she feels overtired from skipping a nap. She feels too tired and grumpy to think about how others might feel.

How to meet your child’s needs

This isn’t about bending to your child’s every demand, though. When it’s 30 minutes away from dinnertime and she wants a snack, she can benefit from waiting for dinner.

Instead, it’s about alerting yourself to potential culprits that could contribute to her misbehavior.

Here’s how:

Establish routines

Many people misunderstand routines as strict schedules they can’t divert from. I see routines instead as “pillars” that mark your day, such as eating and sleeping. Stick to the same meal and nap times, then revolve the rest of your activities around these pillars.

By using routines, you don’t have to try to remember when your child last had a snack. That’s because you know she eats at 9am every day. You’re less likely to skip naps when you usually go home from an outing at 12pm.

Children also thrive with predictability and routine. They don’t like not knowing what’s next, or feeling anxious about potential chaos and change.

In an ironic twist, the consistency of a routine actually allows for more flexibility. Yup—the more you follow a routine, the more your child will be willing to go with the flow.

After all, your child has been following the same routine at home for weeks and months. She sees any changes—a vacation, a whole day at the beach—as a thrill, not a threat to normalcy. She can even mimic the routine she’s grown used to away from home.

Ask yourself why your child is misbehaving

It’s too easy to react when our kids misbehave. This morning, my six-year-old threw a surprise tantrum because he wasn’t the first to wake up.

I felt frustrated and impatient. But I had to ask myself why he could be behaving this way.

My first guess was he had a bad dream, or didn’t sleep well. He may have also been adjusting to his first week at school.

By asking ourselves why our kids behave the way they do, we can pinpoint any needs we can meet. If it’s fatigue, we can adjust an earlier bedtime. If it’s adapting to new changes, we can spend one-on-one time talking about it.

The biggest benefit of asking why? It forces you to be a detective and dig around for a reason instead of reacting out of anger. You become more empathetic to her needs instead of frustrated or withdrawn.

By asking ourselves why our kids behave the way they do, we can pinpoint any needs we can meet.

Acknowledge the need before disciplining

When kids misbehave, we tend to focus on the actual behavior rather than what led up to it. We think a child is throwing a tantrum because she didn’t get a turn to kick the ball. Or we stop digging at the first level: We think she’s also upset because it happens to be her favorite ball.

But dig deeper and see if the reasons could stem even farther than that. Could she be throwing a tantrum because she didn’t eat much at lunch, or her tummy feels bad?

By finding potential needs we haven’t met, we can acknowledge them first before disciplining. For instance, you can tell your child, “You must be hungry, which might be making you feel bad and cry.”

You can even take it a step further and provide her with what she needs. You can say, “After you calm down, maybe we can grab a light snack.

Conclusion

It’s pretty rare for kids to act up “for no reason,” and one of the many times they misbehave is because we haven’t met their needs.

You can reduce and prevent outbursts by meeting your child’s needs ahead of time. Establish routines to ensure she’s taken care of. Ask yourself why she’s behaving this way so you can discover the real reasons behind it. And once you do, acknowledge the void and even provide her with what she’s looking for.

By meeting our children’s needs, we can prevent misbehavior—with something as simple as a good night’s sleep or a snack to quiet the tummy.

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Tell me in the comments: What are some of the common reasons and needs your child misbehaves?

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